1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to metal powder, an ultraviolet ray curable ink jet composition and a recorded object.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, as a method of manufacturing a trinket showing an appearance having gloss, used is a metal plating method, a metal foil press printing method using a metal foil, a thermal transfer method using a metal foil or the like.
However, there are problems in that a printed portion having a fine pattern is hardly to be formed by using such methods or such methods are difficult to be used with respect to a curved surface portion of the trinket.
Generally, used is a coating material containing metal powder in these methods (for example, Patent document 1). Such a coating material can solve or relieve the problems as described above. However, there are problems in that a metal material cannot give high gloss and expensive-looking to be inherently exhibited to a trinket. It is considered that this is because the trinket is easily affected by oxidation and the like by producing the trinket in a state of powder which is constituted from particles of the metal material having a large specific surface area.
On the other hand, as a method of applying a composition containing a pigment or a dye onto a recording medium (object), used is a method of applying the composition using an ink jet method. The ink jet method has such advantages as to be able to form a printed portion having a fine pattern or reliably apply the composition with respect to a curved surface portion of the object. Further, in order to further improve wear resistance, water resistance, solvent resistance and the like of the printed portion, recently, a composition (ultraviolet ray curable ink jet composition) to be cured by irradiating ultraviolet ray is used in the ink jet method (for example, Patent document 2).
However, in the case where metal powder is used instead of the pigment or the dye in the ultraviolet ray curable ink jet composition, there is a problem in that the metal cannot give sufficient characteristics such as gloss to be inherently exhibited by the object. Further, the composition is inferior to the ultraviolet ray curable ink jet composition in stability (storage stability). This causes a problem in that the composition is turned into a gel, and thus ejection stability of the composition is lowered due to viscosity increase thereof.
Patent document 1: JP-A 2001-192618
Patent document 2: JP-A 2009-57548